Guest editorial

Citation

Sassen, R., Hüske, A.-K. and Aggestam-Pontoppidan, C. (2022), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 213-217. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-02-2022-518

Editorial to special issue on: Assessing the contribution of higher education institutions to sustainable development

Background and research focus

Ensuring sustainable development is one of the great global challenges for humanity. Higher education plays a critical role in ensuring that the next generation of decision-makers is capably responsive to global societal and environmental needs (Alm et al., 2021; Sassen and Azizi, 2018a, 2018b). These graduates will encounter a work environment that is challenging, constantly changing and highly competitive, while at the same time being susceptible to sustainability dilemmas and various crises (Storey et al., 2017).

Achieving sustainable development means that sustainability education needs to be diffused as whole institution approach throughout the entire higher education system, encompassing all tasks and elements of the higher education institutions (HEIs) (governance, education, research, outreach and campus operations [GEROCO]) and interfaces among them (Hueske and Aggestam Pontoppidan, 2020; Velazquez et al., 2006):

• A key function within the higher education system is that of designing and delivering curricula that create competencies in sustainable development.

• Research for sustainable development requires a transdisciplinary approach.

• Outreach refers to activities and action programs related to the integration of the HEI within society. This includes working with other universities, various government and business entities, as well as the broader local community on matters pertaining to sustainable development.

• Beyond education, research and outreach activities, HEIs are responsible for the sustainable development of their own operations.

• Implementation of sustainable development in HEIs can be euphemistically seen as challenging or, as expressed by Lozano et al. (2013, p. 4), simply “troublesome.” The way HEIs are teaching and promoting sustainability has been widely discussed in the literature, while the success of current strategies has been questioned (Fleming and Oswick, 2014; Wilson and Thomas, 2012). Similarly, the sustainability implementation in operations encounters a number of barriers (Hueske and Guenther, 2021). Sustainability assessment is still in its infancy (Findler et al., 2018). However, assessment and reporting activities contribute to the advancement toward sustainability by pointing out action areas, comparing intern and extern, involving stakeholders and informing future plans (Alghamdi et al., 2017; An et al., 2019; Berzosa et al., 2017).

This was the starting point for this special issue of the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education and a paper development workshop during the 7th Responsible Management Education Research Conference to add to a sound assessment of the contribution of HEIs to sustainable development by addressing the requirements for sustainability assessment (Sala et al., 2015), accounting and reporting (Azizi et al., 2018; Isenmann et al., 2018; Klußmann et al., 2019; Sassen and Azizi, 2018a, 2018b).

The papers of this special issue contribute in multiple ways to assessing the contribution of HEIs to sustainable development. The papers investigate HEIs around the globe and assess different aspects of sustainability relating to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (UN PRME).

Kohl et al. (2021) point out that the contribution of HEIs goes beyond a whole institution approach of implementing sustainability in all elements of the GEROCO model (Hueske and Aggestam Pontoppidan, 2020). Reviewing UN treaties/declarations and guidance, they highlight the science and research as neutral basis for political decision-making and policy development. In contrast, Bien and Klußmann (2021) take a more internal perspective by exploring how ambiguities related to the understanding of sustainability in science, HEIs and society hamper and drive sustainability transition of HEIs.

Avelar et al. (2021) interview educators to show the contribution of PRME to sustainable development at HEIs by reviewing three GEROCO elements: education, research and outreach. Schmidt et al. (2021) contribute to the sustainability assessment at the interface of education and outreach with a case study on capacity-building projects. They provide an analytical framework to facilitate measuring interdisciplinary understanding regarding sustainable energy systems.

The case study by Elmassah et al. (2021) shows how Cairo University could learn from the role models as Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Germany and Tokyo University in Japan. Thereby, they touch on governance, education, outreach and campus operations.

Three papers especially highlight how HEIs contribute to certain SDGs: Dalla Gasperina et al. (2021) add the operations element with their research on smart campuses and how they contribute to the SDGs, especially numbers 4 and 9 in Brazil. Whereas Miralles-Cardona et al. (2021) focuses on assessing SDG 4.7 and 5 by assessing gender competences within nascent teachers in Spain. Furthermore, Alm et al. (this issue) add the student perspective on key competencies related to sustainable development, especially they conclude that real-life experiences enhance interpersonal competencies for sustainability.

These papers demonstrate that HEIs contribute in a variety of ways to sustainable development. The papers in this special issue address a variety of the GEROCO elements and their measurability. This leads to an ongoing challenge to report and to assess this contribution against, for example, university rankings. Galleli et al. (2021) compare UI Green Metric and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings to contribute to governance, assessment and reporting of HEIs sustainability initiatives.

Country-specific studies have added to our understanding of integrated reporting and social sustainability assessments. Aras et al. (2021) evaluate integrated reporting in the higher education by conducting a case study in Turkey. Ayuso et al. (2021) advances our thinking on integrated social value analysis and applies it to eighth universities in Spain.

Future research is needed in two directions: first, how to implement the whole institution approach by addressing all GEROCO elements: education, research, outreach, and campus operations and how they enhance each other (Hueske and Aggestam Pontoppidan, 2020; Isenmann et al., 2020).

Another avenue relates to assessing the contribution to sustainable development by the HEIs for all those elements. Having better measures could not only enhance the credibility and comparability, reporting but also highlight best cases and show opportunities for improvement and collaboration as demonstrated by the SDG analysis for e-learning, especially MOOCs (Hueske and Guenther, 2021; Hueske et al., 2021).